| EXCERPTS TAKEN FROM
The Holy Ghost
Eccles. Appr. 1952 |
AND with Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1950 TAN BOOKS |
Chapter 4
THE EXCEEDING
BEAUTY OF OUR
SOULS, MADE WORTHY TO RECEIVE
THE HOLY GHOST
That we may the better realize this Divine truth, let us see with what care God has prepared our souls to be the worthy tabernacles of the Holy Ghost. Many Christians too have little idea of the greatness and grandeur of their souls.
We are composed of a body and soul; our bodies are clay and into clay they return after death.
Whatever beauty they have comes from the soul. Our souls are immortal, like to God Himself.
Yet men, as an almost universal rule, give most attention to the care, the welfare, the happiness of their poor bodies. In every 24 hours, their main concern is for the needs, the comforts of these bodies.
They rest them by long hours of sleep; they eat abundantly to nourish them; they give them every possible pleasure. If these bodies suffer the slightest pain or discomfort, they hasten to relieve it. They call doctors and use expensive remedies.
But in all the 24 hours of the day, many think little or nothing at all of their souls.
WHAT DOES GOD THINK OF OUR SOULS?
Now let us see the immense value that our souls have in the eyes of God-----the care, the love with which God has made them, how He has expended all the riches of His wisdom and power in adorning them and making them worthy residences of the Holy Ghost.
Thus perhaps we shall more easily understand why it is that the Holy Ghost resides in us.
OUR CREATION
One of the first questions of the Catechism is, "Who made you?" The answer is, "God made me." These few words do not impress us; they are not sufficiently explained to us, and as a consequence, few people have the faintest idea of the wonders of their creation. They never think of thanking God for all that He has done for them when bringing them into being.
Instead of me, He might with the same facility have created a great Saint or a glorious Angel. Why did He create poor me? Because He loved me with an infinite love.
Let us pause to meditate on this first immense proof-----of God's love for us.
OUR SOUL, GOD'S MASTERPIECE
God Himself created us with His Own "Divine hands." He created us simply because He loved us. He made us to His perfect image and likeness. He did not create us as He created others of His creatures. He created us with a special love. He created us as His Own dear children, children who will be His forever and forever, children who will be with Him for all eternity, seated on glorious thrones in His presence, enjoying His happiness and sharing in His glory.
In creating us, He used His infinite wisdom, His infinite power, His infinite love, His infinite generosity in making us to His Own perfect image and likeness.
Our likeness to God is not a merely external, appearance; it is in the very essence of our being.
He made our souls spirits like Himself; He made our souls immortal like Himself. Our souls will live as long as God lives.
He gave us faculties like His very Own. He gave us a glorious intelligence like His Divine intelligence. He gave us a free will, independence in our actions, a will that nothing can coerce, a will so wonderful that, if we only use it rightly, its every act will have an eternal reward. He gave us the power of looking at the past, the present and the future, as He Himself does.
The soul of man, thus formed and fashioned by God, is the most wondrous thing in creation.
OUR SOUL LIKE TO GOD HIMSELF
His Divine Goodness was not yet satisfied with all the natural gifts He had given us. He resolved to raise us by a new and still more wonderful creation to a Divine rank. He made us as gods. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
In the words of the Apostle
St. Peter, He gave us a real participation of His Own Divine nature.
(2 Ptr. 1: 4). This sanctifying grace, this
Divine life, He pours into the substance of our souls, and thence into
our faculties, making them capable of the highest supernatural acts.
Looking on us thus radiant, thus transfigured by this Divine beauty, He can well exclaim: "What could I do for My vineyard that I have not done." He made us, indeed, the masterpiece of His Divine hands.
St. John Chrysostom says that, before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are like a man weighed down with age and infirmities, but when the Holy Ghost comes into us, we are made young, beautiful and full of energy.
Blosius says that, did we see our souls in the state of grace, we should be transported with joy and delight.
St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi says that we should die of love did we see the beauty of our souls.
GOD HIMSELF WATCHES OVER US
One of the most beautiful and touching proofs of the love that God gives us is His personal care of each one of us. Since the moment of our creation, He has never taken His eyes off us. Nothing happens to us, not the least thing, without His Divine consent. "Not a hair falls from our heads without His knowledge or permission."
We are touched when we see the tender care and watchfulness of a mother who has her eyes ever on her little child, making sure that no evil happens to it.
The mother's care gives us but the faintest idea of God's sweet care of each one of us. As we saw, God gave us all His love and attention at the moment of our creation. This love and care has not ceased or diminished for one instant in all those long years of our life.
How little we prize this most tender and infinite love of God for us!
STILL ANOTHER PROOF OF GOD'S LOVE
At the moment we came into the world, God called one of His great princes, a glorious Angel, and bade him guard and guide us. He bade him devote all his Angelic power, all his wisdom and love to helping us, to keeping us from harm and defending us against all dangers.
This Angel loves us with unspeakably great love, first of all because God has given us to his care; secondly, because he loves us himself with all the strength and love of his Angelic nature; thirdly, because we are in ourselves things so surpassingly lovely.
We wonder, in reading the story of Tobias, when we see how good God was to send him the Angel Raphael to accompany him on his journey and obtain for him many great benefits. Much more should we wonder that each one of us has a glorious Angel as companion, not for a week or a month, but for all our lives, an Angel who gives us all his care. He never leaves us; he obtains for us all kinds of graces and saves us from countless dangers.
It is because our souls are so perfect, so dear to Him that God gives us this Angel all to ourselves, to protect us, to help us, to love us.
Yet many Christians do not realize the favor God has done them in giving them this glorious Angel to watch over them. They never thank their Angel for all he is ever doing for them, nor for the dangers he saves them from, nor do they call on him for the help which he is only too ready to give them in their difficulties.
Chapter 5
THE HOLY GHOST IS
PERSONALLY IN OUR SOULS
Now that God has made the soul perfect with all these gifts of nature and grace and that it is indeed a worthy tabernacle for the Third Divine Person, the Holy Ghost then comes into it with ineffable love and makes it His living Tabernacle forever.
THE SEVEN GIFTS
He pours out on it His gifts and graces and infuses into it the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity; He gives us His Seven Gifts, which help us to follow His inspirations and which strengthen our natural powers so that we see better and act with more strength. These Gifts are Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom and Counsel, which enlighten and help the intelligence, and Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord, which strengthen our wills.
The Gift of Wisdom helps us to think
less of worldly things and more of God and our spiritual
life. Wisdom is the highest and most privileged
Gift of the Holy Spirit. It is like an overflowing of the Uncreated Wisdom.
St. Bernard calls it the "supernatural Gift of the Holy Spirit which enables
us to know God and to rejoice in perfect love." Wisdom not only illumines
the mind, but it inflames the heart with love for God, gives us a relish
for Divine things, and an ardent desire for heavenly treasures-----especially
a longing to possess God and to see Him face to face. It detaches our hearts
from the goods of this world and removes us from everything opposed to
our last end. In its light, we see more and more clearly the nothingness
of things created.
The Gift of Understanding is that Gift of the Holy Spirit which enables us to comprehend the mysteries and doctrines of our holy religion. If God designs to lead a soul to holiness, He gives it an interior light and a deep insight into the Divine mysteries, whereby it is animated to serve Him more perfectly. This light is the Gift of Understanding, through which simple persons often have a deep knowledge of great mysteries-----for instance, of the Most Holy Trinity and the Incarnation-----surpassing the natural understanding of men who are learned but less devout.
The Gift of Counsel is what we may call Divine prudence, which enables us to choose what is pleasing to God and good for ourselves. It moves the soul to choose what is most conducive to the glory of God and to its own salvation. By following the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, we receive true interior peace and spiritual consolation. This Gift is especially necessary for superiors, whose duty it is to guide others, for here natural prudence does not suffice.
The Gift of Fortitude gives us strength to do our duties well, banishing all timidity and human respect, strengthening souls to hate sin, to practice virtue and to prefer contempt, temporal loss, persecution and even death rather than to deny Christ by word or deed. By this Gift we are empowered to fight and overcome the enemies of our salvation and we are enabled, in the midst of temptations, difficulties and persecutions, to fulfill the will of God. It makes us ready and courageous to undertake the greatest sacrifices for our salvation.
The Gift of Knowledge helps us to see and avoid dangers to our soul and our spiritual welfare. By the Gift of Knowledge, the Holy Spirit enlightens us with an inner light, that we may know ourselves and discern the snares of self-love, of our passions, of the devil and of the world, and may choose the fittest means to overcome them. By this Gift, the Holy Spirit illuminates us more and more as He lets His Divine light stream into our hearts and enlightens us with regard to revealed truths and the duties we have to fulfill. The known truth appears to us in a clearer light than it could be perceived by our own intelligence. This is the knowledge of the Saints that surpasses all worldly knowledge, "coming down from the Father of lights." (James 1: 17). Even created nature is made an open book wherein we read God and His perfections.
The Gift of Piety helps us to love God more tenderly, with more confidence, and to do everything lovingly for Him. By the Gift of Piety or godliness the Holy Spirit infuses into us a reverence for God and Divine things and gives us joy in conversing with Him. Piety inclines us to love God as the best of Fathers, to love most tenderly His dearly beloved Son and the holy Mother of that Son. Piety moves us to love not only the Saints and the Angels, but also our fellow men, as the images and children [actual or potential] of God. It causes us to feel the sweetest pleasure in conversing with God, in listening to spiritual reading and in hearing the Divine word. It makes us delight to do the will of the Father and makes us have at heart all that tends to the honor and glory of God.
The Gift of Fear of the Lord inspires us with reverence and respect for God and all things relating to Him and inspires us with a filial fear of giving Him offense. The Gift of the Fear of the Lord is that childlike fear which causes us to dread no misfortune so much as that of displeasing God, and which, accordingly, makes us flee from sin as the greatest evil. There are two kinds of fear: the fear of a servant and the fear of a child. Childlike fear of God is the more noble and beautiful of the two, as it urges the soul to avoid the least sin in order not to displease God, the best and most amiable Father in Heaven. The Saints were animated by childlike fear and love for the Heavenly Father and were ready to die rather than break His holy law by willful sin.
These are called "Gifts" because we do not acquire or merit them. They are given us freely by the Holy Ghost. When we obey and follow the inspirations they give us, we receive the Beatitudes, that is, new ideas, new views, new activities, a new life. We become more meek, more joyful, more peaceful and more clean of heart.
THE EIGHT BEATITUDES
1. Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
2. Blessed are the
meek, for they shall possess the land.
3. Blessed are they that mourn, for
they shall be comforted.
4. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill.
5. Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the clean of
heart, for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God.
8. Blessed are they that suffer
persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
What wonderful graces the Holy Ghost gives us, if only we ask Him.
THE TWELVE FRUITS OF THE HOLY GHOST
From the Gifts and the Beatitudes flow the Fruits of the Holy Ghost, which are Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Mildness, Benignity [or Kindness], Faith, Longanimity [or Perseverance in Adversity] Modesty, Continency, and Chastity.
They are all those acts we do with peace, pleasure, joy and love. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
These graces are called "Fruits" because
they are the crowning favors, the result of all the Holy
Spirit has been doing for us. They are to
our souls what the fruit is to the tree, what the flower is to the plant.
We thus become an object of delight to the Father and the Son, Who come too and dwell in our souls, which thus become the home of the Blessed Trinity.
These Gifts, Beatitudes and Fruits we receive by prayer and good works, by Holy Mass, Communion and the Sacraments. Strange that many Christians never think of asking for the Gifts, the Beatitudes, the Fruits of the Holy Ghost.
These Gifts and graces do not make our lives sad or austere.
Far from it, they fill us with a peace, a joy, and a consolation we never felt before. What was before difficult to us becomes now easy and delightful, for the Holy Ghost, as we have said, is the Spirit of joy, peace and consolation. He enlightens, He strengthens us, He enables us to know God as we never knew Him before. He gives us a foretaste of Heaven.
Joy and consolation are in fact the chief characteristics of the Holy Ghost. Thus we read in the Acts of the Apostles, "The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Ghost."
St. Paul says, "I suprabound in joy in all my tribulations."
Joy is a result of holiness, and we find the Saints the most joyful of mortals. St. Dominic, for instance, was always most joyful. He was never sad, except when he heard of the sorrow of others.
The Fruits of the Holy Spirit are most desirable. They sweeten our life here on earth and give the assurance of our rejoicing in the love of the Holy Spirit throughout eternity.
Peace of Heart
Father Faber, the well-known English spiritual writer and convert, was received into the Church on November 18, 1845. On that day, after having received the Sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and Confirmation, he felt so happy that he was unable to express to a friend the great peace which flooded his soul and which gave him a foretaste of eternal blessedness. Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote on it three words: "Peace, peace, peace!" This is the "peace of God which surpasses all understanding" (Phil. 4: 7), which we obtain when the Holy Spirit enters our souls. Peace and joy in the Holy Spirit are a foretaste of the future blessedness of Heaven.
St. Philip Neri
St. Philip Neri was accustomed to ask daily for the Holy Spirit. On the Feast of Pentecost, 1544, when he again begged most fervently for the graces and Gifts of the Holy Spirit, he became so inflamed with Divine love that he was unable to stand. He sank powerless to the ground and bared his breast, seeking thus to cool his burning heart. Filled with unspeakable joy, he at length arose, but his whole body trembled, so greatly did his heart rejoice in the Lord.
Frequently, his love and joy became so overwhelming that he called out in a stifled voice: "Enough, O Lord! Enough! Human frailty is unable to bear such excessive happiness!" Who would not envy this Saint for enjoying in so intense a degree the sweet fruit of the joy of the Holy Spirit?
